FTSE CLOSE: EU failure to agree Greek bailout deal keeps Footsie flat

17.25 (CLOSE): The EU's failure to agree a bailout deal for Greece hindered progress on London's leading shares index today.

The FTSE 100 Index was flat at 5752 after eurozone finance ministers were unable to reach a deal to give Greece the next tranche of its emergency aid and will now meet again next week.

Sentiment was not helped by worse-than-expected UK public finance figures, which revealed £8.6 billion of borrowing in October - up £2.7 billion on a year earlier.

No go Greece: EU leaders have failed to agree a bailout deal for Greece, which stalled progress on London's leading shares index today.

The pound was higher against the euro at 1.24 as uncertainty weakened the single currency. Sterling was also up against the US dollar at 1.59.

Among stocks, platinum refiner Johnson Matthey was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 after it reported a 6 per cent drop in half-year profits following a fall in metal prices and warned its second half performance was unlikely to improve as trading in some markets had worsened. Shares fell 135p to 2190p - a decline of 6 per cent.

Compass - the world's biggest catering company - narrowed early session share falls seen after disappointment at its full-year results, despite news of a 7 per cent rise in underlying pre-tax profits to £1.09 billion. Shares later stood 9.5p lower at 699.5p.

Mining giant Xstrata made further gains after shareholders yesterday finally approved its multi-billion pound merger with Glencore International after months of setbacks.

Xstrata, which rose yesterday, added another 10.4p to 997p.

Car parts and bicycle retailer Halfords was lower in the FTSE 250 Index, down 1 per cent or 2.8p to 342.2p, following interims revealing a 23.4 per cent slump in underlying pre-tax profits to £41.9 million despite a second quarter sales recovery.

Newspaper stocks were in the spotlight after the creation of a new regional newspaper company was announced - called Local World - which will buy Daily Mail and General Trust's Northcliffe Media business.

DMGT, which will receive £52.5 million for the division and a 38.7 per cent shareholding in the new group, edged 1p higher to 474p.

Trinity Mirror, which will also take a 20 per cent shareholding in Local World, rose 1 per cent or 1p to 80.3p.

JD Sports Fashion was also moving higher, up 1 per cent or 6.5p to 716.5p in the FTSE 250, after reporting a pick up in third quarter like-for-like sales to 1.5 per cent from 1.1 in the first half.

The biggest FTSE 100 risers were BG Group up 29p at 1060p, United Utilities ahead 12.5p at 671.5p, Imperial Tobacco up 44p at 2472p and British Land ahead 9p at 524p.

The biggest FTSE 100 fallers were Johnson Matthey down 135p at 2190p, Vedanta Resources off 26p at 1057p, Eurasian Natural Resources down 6p at 269p and Kingfisher off 5.9p at 272p.

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The Dow Jones is forecast to open flat, but pending US jobs and consumer sentiment data could change investor mood across the Atlantic today.

Fawad Razaqzada, market strategist at GFT Markets, said the last session before the Thanksgiving break might be sluggish.

'With the underlying uncertainty, traders may well want to be risk-off ahead of the long weekend - certainly there will be no expectation of fresh news about averting the fiscal cliff, but Europe will remain a concern and there's the developing situation in the Middle East,' he said.

10.40:

Markets are on the back foot today after the EU failed to agree a bail-out deal for Greece and the US Fed boss made a 'doom-laden' speech about the fiscal cliff.

Eurozone finance ministers, the IMF and ECB were unable to reach a deal to give Greece the next tranche of its emergency aid, despite nearly 12 hours of talks in Brussels. They will try again in six days' time.

The FTSE 100 is down 10.9 points at 5,737.2, while German and French indices are also posting mild losses.

Among stocks, there were share falls for top tier firms Compass and Johnson Matthey after their results, with the firms down 14.5p to 694.5p and 115p to 2210p respectively.

Falls for Compass - the world's biggest catering company - came despite news of a 7 per cent rise in underlying pre-tax profits.

Platinum refiner Johnson Matthey was under pressure after it reported a 6 per cent drop in half-year profits following a fall in metal prices.

Car parts and bicycle retailer Halfords was lower in the FTSE 250, down 4 per centor 12.2p to 332.9p following half-year results. These revealed a 23.4 per cent slump in underlying pre-tax profits to £41.9million despite a second quarter sales recovery.

Newspaper stocks were in the spotlight after the announcement of a new regional newspaper company called Local World, which will buy Daily Mail and General Trust's Northcliffe business.

DMGT (owner of This Is Money) will receive £52.5million for the business and a 38.7 per cent shareholding in the new group. It fell 1 per cent or 4.6p to 468.4p.

Trinity Mirror, which will also take a 20 per cent shareholding in Local World, rose 3 per cent or 2.6p to 81.9p.

In the US, central bank boss Ben Bernanke has delivered a tough message to politicians about the 'fiscal cliff': solve it, because if not the Fed can't prevent a recession.

Bernanke warned the US economy was already being affected by the prospect of $600bn of spending cuts and tax rises, which will automatically come into force on January 1 if a new plan is not thrashed out between President Barack Obama and Congress. Read more here.

Chris Beauchamp, market analyst at IG said: 'Fed chairman Ben Bernanke made a suitably doom-laden speech, saying that even a last-minute solution would be damaging due to its negative effect on market confidence. It is a warning that all should heed.'

Regarding the Greece debt impasse, he commented: 'Eurozone ministers once again failed to throw a deal together, as talks over the latest rescue plan for Athens fell apart.

'You might have thought that three years would be enough time to solve this crisis, but no, they have said they need more time to hammer out the details. The next attempt begins in six days, so we will just have to be patient for now.'

8.50: The FTSE 100 has opened 15.1 points lower at 5,733 after Greece's international lenders failed to reach a deal over its latest financial aid package.

After nearly 12 hours of talks through the night, eurozone finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank remained deadlocked on how to bring down Greece's debt to a sustainable level.

They will have a third go at resolving the issue next week.

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said the lack of a debt deal between lenders for technical reasons did not justify holding up aid to Athens.

Investors were also rattled after US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke said the central bank lacks tools to cushion the economy from the impact of the 'fiscal cliff'.

Unless divided US politicians reach a deal over the budget deficit, some $600billion of spending cuts and tax rises will automatically kick in on January 1, and potentially tip the U.S. economy into recession.

Gary Jenkins of Swordfish Research said: 'Mr Bernanke was in carrot and stick mode, first shooting a warning shot across the politicians' bows by stating that the Fed doesn’t have the tools to offset the potential harm to the economy if they fail to resolve the fiscal cliff issue but saying that if they do deal with the cliff then the new year could be "…a very good one for the American economy".'

The FTSE 100 closed 10.44 points higher at 5,748.10 yesterday, helped by the completion of the long-awaited takeover of miner Xstrata by commodities trader Glencore.

Stocks to watch today include:

Johnson Matthey: The world's largest supplier of catalytic converters posted a 6 percent dip in first-half profit, helped by auto catalyst sales, but warned of a tougher second half for its closely watched truck segment.

DMGT, Trinity Mirror: Daily Mail has agreed to sell its regional titles to a new company led by tabloid veteran David Montgomery in the biggest shake up to the British newspaper market for years.

Halfords British bicycles-to-car-parts group Halfords posted a 23 per cent slump in first half profit as a better second quarter sales performance failed to offset a poor start to the year.

Cupid: There is gossip that US internet giant ActiveCorp, which operates subscription-based online dating services lovelandseek.com, Match.com, uDate.com and Chemistry.com, could be ready to make a bid of around £250million or 300 pence a share, according to the Daily Mail market report.

French Connection: The company said its third quarter like-for-like revenue was flat.

Gemfields: The company proposes to acquire Faberge, valued at approximately $142million.

JD Sports Fashion: The company said it is on track to meet expectations.

Compass: The company said its full year profit was up 9 per cent and it was confident for 2013.

UK Mail Group: The company said first half group revenue rose 11.9 per cent to £225.7million.